


Siobhan, Version 3.0

by laniew1



Series: Version, Update [1]
Category: Ringer (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-21
Updated: 2011-09-21
Packaged: 2017-10-23 22:43:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/255881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laniew1/pseuds/laniew1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Andrew sees things quite a bit more clearly than people give him credit for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Siobhan, Version 3.0

  
They don’t have family dinners. At the beginning, when Siobhan had been trying and he had been trying and Juliet had been attempting to accept they’d tried them. They’d never sat very well.

Three awkward people with little to nothing in common sitting around the table, two of them pretending to like each other, the other two slightly too wrapped up in themselves to care if Juliet was miserable and Siobhan was hiding things.

He knew about her sister, he thinks Siobhan really doesn’t know him as well as she purports to if she didn’t believe he’d even do a cursory background check on her.

Especially before they got married.

So they don’t have family dinners, or breakfasts, or even spend that much time in the kitchen at the same time.

He can probably be excused for being thrown off balance when he gets up and ready and goes to make coffee and maybe toast a bagel before he leaves for the day and finds Siobhan and Juliet sitting together at the kitchen table.

Juliet has a bowl of oatmeal in front of her, he wasn’t even aware that they had oatmeal in the penthouse and Siobhan has her hands wrapped around a cup, blowing on it gently. He makes a motion like he’s going to remind her that coffee isn’t good for the baby when he sees the string hanging from the side of the cup.

“Did you call the number?” Siobhan is asking, Juliet drags her spoon through her oatmeal, making a face.

“He seems nice enough, but…” Juliet shrugs, she doesn’t look at Siobhan, she bites her lip and hunches her shoulder, like she’s waiting for the blow that will land and draw blood.

“He’s a good listener,” Siobhan says and she sounds… Andrew’s not sure if he’s ever actually _heard_ that sound coming from Siobhan’s mouth. It sounds like compassion, like she cares and is worried; and it’s all wrapped up in a package that looks like his wife but isn’t acting anything like her. It’s a conundrum and one he aims to solve.

He’s actually growing _fond_ of this version (Siobhan Version 3.0 Juliet had called her several days before, Siobhan had been Version 1.0 when they’d been dating and 2.0 when she’d become what Juliet refers to as the bitch-mother) can see very clearly the possibility of falling back in love with her, he thinks he would like to keep this version of his wife around for as long as he’s able.

Though Siobhan has a habit of reinventing herself, version 4.0 is coming soon he’s sure and when it does they’ll be over and done and he’ll get to find out if the prenup that his lawyers slaved over will manage to keep the majority of his money.

“You’ve talked to him?” Juliet asks, she sounds surprised and after a moment Andrew realizes that they’re talking about a counselor of some sort and he’s surprised as well.

Siobhan bites _her_ lip and bends her head over her cup. If she’d been alone she’d be slouching he’s sure, all actions that he’s never seen Siobhan display, not ever in the time that they’ve been together.

He puts a hand to the door to steady himself and he closes his eyes.

“My sister,” Siobhan says softly. “She was… she had some problems.”

The sister, the _identical twin sister_.

He wonders what the woman sitting at the table would do if he walked in there and called her Bridget.

Would she jerk in shock, would she issue sharp tongued denials and scoff and roll her eyes?

  


******************************************************************************

  
The FBI Agent had left a card with Siobhan, he’s not _entirely_ sure that the woman that he’s been living with and possibly falling back in love with is his wife’s twin sister.

The possibility of her sister being dead, of being missing at the very least could have shaken some emotion loose in Siobhan that she’d thought long buried. Coupled with the pregnancy her hormones and emotions could overruling any barriers that she’d put up to protect herself.

Of course if she is actually Bridget there is likely no pregnancy and the emotions, the fact that she lets others see them, could just be Bridget herself not being a cold-hearted bitch like her sister.

“This is Agent Machado,” the voice is smooth, on the phone and Andrew contemplates hanging up. Of going back to work and then going home to his daughter who is talking to someone and to Siobhan who is seemingly happy to see him return.

“Mr. Martin?” Victor Machado is good at his job, that’s what anyone he’s talked to has said. He’s good at his job and if just the little bit of digging that he’s done into Bridget’s past is true this man is probably one of the few who can protect her until she can say the things that she needs to say.

“I’d like to talk to you about Bridget Cafferty.”

  


******************************************************************************

  
They meet at a coffee shop that is not his normal one, it’s one that Agent Machado had suggested and it’s off the beaten path, so to speak. Less of a chance of someone like Siobhan seeing them together.

“How much trouble is she in?” he asks. He doesn’t even want to broach the subject, but he needs to know if making Agent Machado aware of even the _possibility_ that Siobhan is actually Bridget is going to put her danger…

Well he won’t have that.

“I can probably get the assault charges dropped,” Machado says, he cocks his head to the side and studies him. “She’s scared; I would be too under the circumstances. She thinks that we can’t protect her…”

“Can you?” Andrew asks.

“We did alright up until the day before she was set to testify, we haven’t been able to figure out what set her off, why she ran off and went to ground.”

“Have you investigated the possibility that someone tried to take her from wherever you were hiding her?”

Machado shakes his head. “The agents on rotation were all ones that I trusted implicitly, all ones that I’ve worked with before. She just… Why the sudden interest in Bridget?”

Andrew takes a sip of his coffee, then takes a breath. “My wife has been acting oddly.”

“Bridget’s been in contact with her,” Machado says. “We found a locker that had some of her personal affects in it; one of those items was a letter to Bridget from your wife.”

“She never…” Andrew sighs. “She never actually _told_ me about her sister, you see. I only know because my lawyers did a background check when I began dating her. She never told me herself.”

“They had a falling out several years ago, drugs, alcohol, lifestyle choices. I’m sure your wife had her pick of reasons to cut Bridget loose. She’s clean now though, but if she’s actually on the streets,” Machado shrugs. “Well there’s nothing stopping her from starting up again. I’m half afraid sometimes that she’ll come into the morgue as an overdosed Jane Doe and we’ll be completely screwed.”

They sit there and Andrew doesn’t have the first clue what the right thing to do is.

“You believe that your wife is Bridget,” Machado says finally.

“No,” Andrew shakes his head. “Not entirely.” Because there has always been Siobhan, there has always been Bridget; Bridget has not been playacting at being her sister this whole time, of that he is very sure.

“We know they met, the letter tells us that much, who’s to say that Siobhan didn’t send Bridget back in her place, or that there was some sort of accident that Bridget took advantage of.”

“My wife is pregnant,” Andrew says softly.

They’d stopped trying, that’s when people said it happened. When you stop trying so hard sometimes that’s just the push it needs to happen.

Of course there’s also the possibility that the baby that Siobhan is carrying is not his, she’d been having at least one affair that he knew about. The baby could be that mans though he’s trying not to think about that.

“Congratulations,” Machado says. “But you know if the woman that is currently living with you _is_ Bridget there is no baby.”

Andrew stares at him, sets his cup carefully down and steeples his hands.

“What needs to happen?” he asks.

“DNA test, fingerprints,” Machado says. “I’ll be taking her with me back into protective custody if it is determined that she’s Bridget.”

“I think she’ll be better protected if she stays with me.”

“Are you really going to put your daughter at risk like that?” Machado quirks an eyebrow at him.

“She’ll be better protected if she stays with us,” Andrew says stubbornly. “If she’s Bridget you can post guards in the lobby and at the elevator, but our building is secure.”

Machado nods once, though his eyes say that he’s going to continue arguing against this plan of action. Andrew might as well if it is determined that the woman he’s living with is not Siobhan. Of course he likes this woman that may or may not be he wife. Several weeks ago he couldn’t have said that.

  


******************************************************************************

  
He can understand Gemma’s anger and pain; she lashes out at Siobhan and Henry at every opportunity. The only problem he can see is that if Siobhan is actually Bridget well Bridget’s not been one half of the duo cuckolding them for almost a year.

Bridget, in this instance and most likely _just_ this instance, is just as innocent of any wrong doing as Gemma or Andrew.

  


******************************************************************************

  
She goes shopping with Juliet, he comes home with work and they’re in the living room sorting through bags. There are more clothes for Juliet then for Siobhan, another mark in the column that this is not his wife.

Besides the fact that she’s holding a shirt up to herself that Siobhan wouldn’t have been caught dead in.

He smiles and laughs and they startle and look over at him and they both smile back at him, Juliet’s eyes are happy and light, pain free for the moment and Siobhan looks young and carefree and just like the woman that he fell in love with and married.

He stands there, hands on the back of a chair and watches as Juliet pulls clothes out of a bag and whispers with Siobhan.

He wants to ask, _is my wife dead, are you the sister that she wouldn’t tell me about_. He doesn’t, he’s not sure if it’s because he’s scared of the answer or scared of how things will change if it’s found to be the truth.

  


******************************************************************************

  
Machado leaves a message on his voice mail, a date and a time and a stern ‘make sure she’s there’.

Andrew listens to the message four times, writes down the date and time and puts a note on the refrigerator reminding Siobhan of a doctor’s appointment that she didn’t make.

  


******************************************************************************

  
She’s curled up on their bed that night; she doesn’t seem to remember that they’ve not shared a bed or room in two months; that she’s been sleeping in the guest bedroom that she decorated with all her favorite things like she knew that there would come a time when she wouldn’t want to lie next to him.

If this is his wife she’s three months along; the baby _could_ be his, if there even is a baby.

“Are you mad at me?” she asks and he tightens the belt on his bathrobe, fingers gripping smooth fabric.

She looks scared, though she’s taking great pains to hide it.

“No,” he says. “Of course not, have you done something that would make me angry?” he asks.

She’s been ever so patient with Juliet, taking her to meet the counselor that regardless as to what Juliet says she actually likes. And she’s been attentive to Andrew, though she also keeps trying to make herself invisible.

Like she wants to be there but she doesn’t actually want to be seen.

That’s not Siobhan behavior, if it had been two months ago he would say that she’s plotting something.

“If I were to ask you something,” he begins. “Would you tell me the truth?”

“Yes,” she says promptly, he sits on the edge of the bed and then situates himself so he’s sitting against the headboard; she curls up against him like its instinct, like its normal behavior.

It’s not.

Her hand twines in the belt on his robe, wrapping it around her hand multiple times.

“Are you having an affair with Henry?” he asks softly, her hand stops moving and she tilts her head so she can look at him.

“No,” the conviction in her voice is what seals it for him.

This is not Siobhan.

  


******************************************************************************

  
He goes with her to the doctors’ appointment, she keeps insisting that she doesn’t need him there to hold her hand but if she’s going to be blindsided with the truth by Agent Machado he wants her to know that she has at least one person in her corner.

She holds his hand in the elevator, fingers clenching around his until he pulls her into a loose hug. She almost clings to him; he kisses the top of her head and then releases her, allowing her to take his hand once more, their fingers linked together.

She smells like his wife’s expensive shampoo and perfume, but she’s dressed in a manner that Siobhan would never dress herself in.

“Siobhan Martin,” she says to the receptionist, the woman looks at her and smiles, it’s thin and not friendly and says, “you can have a seat, we’ll be ready for you in a few minutes.”

“Okay,” she still has a grip on Andrew’s fingers and tugs him over to a small waiting area. “I don’t think she likes me,” she says in a quiet confiding tone.

“Maybe she just doesn’t like her job,” Andrew suggests, there’s a small smile on her face when she glances over at him, her fingers are still clenching his, he runs his thumb over the back of her hand.

“Mrs. Martin?” a young woman in what has to be the ugliest dress that Andrew has ever seen calls from another door. She has a clipboard in her hand and when Andrew stands to follow she shoots him a look and shakes her head.

He just smiles at her enigmatically and follows.

They’re led down a short corridor and the young woman taps three times on a door and then pushes it open, standing to the side so they can walk past her.

Andrew has his arm settled along on her back, hand on her hip, so he can feel her jerk and go to back away.

“Now Bridget, don’t be that way, we just want to talk,” Agent Machado is standing behind the doctors’ desk. He looks calm and serious and he’s not wearing his jacket so Andrew can see his shoulder holster and gun.

“I don’t…” she starts and Andrew tugs her up against him, doesn’t say anything when she wraps her arms around him, just presses his lips against her temple, he can feel her shaking, she’s terrified.

“Its okay, Bridget,” he whispers. “It’s going to be okay now.”

  
  



End file.
